Why the First Cause MUST BE GOD (Dr. Rob Koons)

In this in-depth interview, philosophy professor Rob Koons provides several powerful reasons to think the First Cause is God. We're closing the "Gap" between First Cause and God. Toward the end of the interview, we take your questions.

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#Apologetics #God #FirstCause

[adamsharpe]

This is one of my favorite videos on the channel. The gap problem is one of the most difficult issues around cosmological arguments (it's why I, even as a theist, am not fully convinced by them), and is often glossed over for some reason (ex. Craig spends all of about five pages on it in Reasonable Faith). Koons presented some of the best reasons I've seen for identifying the first cause with God, and in a fairly "metaphysically neutral" way (unlike, say, Feser whose attempts to close the gap in Five Proofs rely too much on Thomistic principles that I find difficult to accept). Also, for those (like me) who like logic/mathematics and formal notation, I appreciate Koons' precision with definitions (like 'pure act') that are usually defined in a hand wavy way.

[bridgetgolubinski]

Wow, he’s my professor rn. Looked him up bc I felt like the way he talked was from a Christian worldview and I was right lol

[ApologeticsSquared]

My face when he said there were *15* arguments 😀

[forestantemesaris]

Dr. Koons: “2+2=4”

Woke Twitter: *triggered*

[plantingasbulldog]

Here we find a "lack of God of the gaps" defeater. The more we learn, the less room we have for a lack of God. :D

[rubendeleeuw]

Thanks for your ongoing work, Cameron. Loving the interviews with Dr Koons.

[TKK]

I simply lack a belief in the claim that there is no good evidence for God.

[theothercheek]

Barring self deception it is not justifiable to blame or fault someone for not being convinced of something. I am convinced that the music jam at the beginning of this video is divine!

[chrishoward-guerin]

I would say that I am not yet sufficiently convinced of the existence of a god or gods, and because of this describe myself as an atheist, but this has always been the only argument for a type of god that i find even somewhat convincing. If someone asks me if i believe in god i always have to ask them what they mean by god, because if they define god as whatever it may have been that influenced the begining of the univerise, i have to conceded that whilst still not confident that this must have been the case, i am convinced in the possibility, and even probability, of something fitting this description having exisited or continuing to exist.

[JohnCamacho]

God is still being used as a placeholder for what we don't know or understand about the universe. It will never stop happening.

[wesleypower]

EDIT: I realized my comment was entirely critical, and it's my unfortunate nature to jump in and focus on only things I disagree with, but this was a pretty substantive, high level interview, and I sincerely appreciate Koons' knowledge and the fact that he does things like this. I follow his works and blog because they're helpful and interesting. Not to criticize him.

In the Q&A section, Koons misses some observations (even what Aquinas himself writes) on how God's future knowledge works under an A-Theory of time. While I don't agree with everything Eleonore Stump writes about in her book "Aquinas" regarding Simplicity, I do think she provides a good explanation for Aquinas' understanding of eternity and future knowledge (implicitly under an A-Theory of time). Koons seems to assume that under an A-Theory of time, God's knowledge must be subject to succession, and that God's knowledge is temporal. Aquinas, Stump, Clarke, and more all make quite clear that God's eternal now has a mode of simultaneity with every temporal present. So God in his eternal now knows all actual things because he's their cause as they happen. Koons' example is of observation (this can and should be qualified, but I don't think Koons had in mind any error) of somebody doing something now not impugning on that person's power to do it or other. That same analogy applies to God "observing" every moment of time as it happens, and that this is all in a manner of simultaneity with God's eternal and unchanging now. Now, much more can be said on the matter, but I do like Stump's treatment of it (and further defining this manner of simultaneity) in Aquinas, as noted above, for those interested.

[edwardlongfellow]

The chaos of speculative reasoning invokes an imagery of the good ship 'God' afloat on a sea yet being drawn irresistible to a giant whirlpool where its fate is to be taken downwards never to arise from unfathomable depths.

[williammcenaney]

Sometimes I wonder whether classical theism is inconsistent with Dr. William Lane Craig's theistic personalism. That's because Dr. Craig believes that God is timeless sans creation and in time after it. I still believe God is absolutely simple because a Catholic Thomist. But I still need someone to teach me the metaphysics of the incarnation because God the Son entered time.

[TimeHandler]

My theory is as follows;

1) Time is infinite.
2) Causal chains are also infinite.
3) However, the fundamental cause can be known as "possibility" itself. Although what comes directly after possibility is unknown, we know for certain, that possibility must exist, at all times in reality, or there would be no possibility for a reality to exist.
4) Possibility can create itself. Tying in with an infinite causal chain.
5) God is unnecessary and unfounded. Also not necessarily even possible.

6) Belief in God is illogical and jumps to conclusions without valid evidence. (personal accounts do not count as significant evidence)

[logos]

I think these arguments prove too much.

1. Suppose God actualizes all possible states of affairs.
2. Suppose there's a possible state of affairs in which God does A over B.
3. God actualized that state of affairs, X, in which God does A over B.
4. But either God necessarily actualizes this state of affairs, or God contingently actualizes this state of affairs.
5. By assumption, God doesn't necessarily actualize this state of affairs, rather does so contingently.
6. Then there is some possible state of affairs such that God actualizes Y over X (referring to the X in 4).
7. But God is the cause of that possible state of affairs, I, in which God does Y over X.
8. God actualizes I necessarily or contingently.
...
Repeat until one of two things occurs:

A. An infinite regress in which God never ends up causing anything.
B. The infinite regress bottoms out in God necessarily causing some state of affairs in which God causes a state of affairs in which...

Once one state of affairs is actualized necessarily, everything predicated on that state in the chain necessarily entails.

Now let's investigate what this "necessity" would look like, and I think it's plainly in God's omniscience combined with normativity.

1. Suppose God is omniscient.
2. God necessarily knows all facts about himself.
3. God necessarily knows all normative facts about himself (subset of 2).
4. Suppose God brings about world W.
5. God intended to bring about W (Unless God can bring things about without meaning to).
6. God knew God would intend to bring about W (by 3).
7. God cannot be in error about facts about himself (Otherwise there's some fact about himself that he's in error about, violating 2).
8. God cannot have failed to bring about W (6, 7).
C. Necessarily, W.

But even that is a little too complicated. Instead of talking about omniscience, let's just talk about the difference principle.

1. Suppose God creates W.
2. Suppose it's possible that God creates W* over W.
3. Via the difference principle, there must be some difference in God which would account for God's bringing about W* when he instead could have brought about W.
4. Because God is necessary, all facts about God are the same in all possible worlds, thus God is the same in W as he would be in W*.
C. By reductio (3, 4) God is not logically necessary.

Then there's the problem of immaterial beings being concrete (which I saw addressed in the questions, but not very well). There are plenty of ways of objecting to this composition, even for minds, without appealing to physicalism.

A. Imagine an NDE where your mind is outside of your body, hearing and observing, but unable to cause anything.
B. Imagine a view, intuited from the above or from other means, that distinguishes between a mind (mutable synthesis between the material and immaterial) and the soul (immutable and immaterial). On this view, souls wouldn't be causally efficacious, though minds still could be insofar as they have a material component.

So even invoking immaterial nature of minds, the question is still very much a live question.

Finally, the "one being" problem. We can construct the existence of one logically necessary object, without controversy, by invoking the non controversial version of S5.

1. Consider all possible states of affairs (I don't think you can' define a set of all possible states of affairs).
2. Any possible state of affairs is necessarily possible (S5).
3. This plurality necessarily exists (by S5).
C. This plurality is a necessary being.

If it is demanded then that there's only one necessary being, it seems more reasonable (in virtue of the above problems) to collapse God into this plurality, than to collapse the plurality into God.

[No_BS_policy]

Dr. Koon does better in explaining, metaphysically, why the first cause must not be physical than Dr. Craig.

[thepreacherxi]

Hi sir. May I know what kind of camera do you use for filming? Thank you. God bless your more!

[quakers]

These facts all seem to require a beginning and a bounded universe. Then there are all the issues that spring from defining God in such a way that it violates all the previous arguments because God is outside of any ideas of logic physics etc. the other problem is getting from this nearly unimaginable god to someone walking around the garden of Eden. There is also the very likely condition that the very language we use to describe these logical ideas may be in error.

[terminat]

Nice talk, but I don't buy God's lack of knowledge if the A-theory of time is true.

[grandvianna]

The best part about this dudes channel is the choice of music